


Talk the storm out

by TerresDeBrume



Series: Boxes 'Verse [4]
Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Avatar & Benders Setting, F/F, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-05
Updated: 2015-02-05
Packaged: 2018-03-10 15:06:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3294863
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TerresDeBrume/pseuds/TerresDeBrume
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Don’t play dumb, Haymitch. You won’t fool me.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Talk the storm out

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Trovia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trovia/gifts).



> I think reading On the First day of Hansmas may help understanding what’s going on here, but if I did a good job you should be able to get the gist of it from the present OS. Hopefully x)

“The windows’ closed aunt Jo,” Noah calls out from the bedroom, “Everything’s going to be fine.”

 

He joins them in the bathroom, takes the second towel from the wall and starts rubbing at Johanna’s hair, her back—for once, Annie’s grateful she prefers to sleep naked. It solves the wet clothes problem.  
Noah works in silence, with precise gestures and between the two of them they have Johanna mostly dry in no time, but the rain’s still hammering against the roof and Johanna’s still panicking—and Annie has had enough.  
There’s only so much stress she can handle.

 

“Listen, Noah, I’m going to go wake Haymitch up. I need you to stay with Jo while I do that, do you feel up to it?”  
“What?” Noah says, eyes growing wide –Johanna whines between them, pulls Annie closer to her, and Annie bends to kiss her temple. “It’s okay love, I’ll only be gone for a couple of minutes, and Noah’s going to be with you the whole time. Do you think you can do that, Noah?”

 

He’s only twelve, she remembers when Noah looks at her with panic in his eyes.  
He’s only twelve and he shouldn’t have to—Annie pushes the thought out of her head. She’ll have time to think of that later. She will. For now, she needs to know if he can handle the situation.

 

“Yeah,” he says after a bit–his voice is shaky, but he sounds sure, and it comes out clearer the second time around. “Yeah, I think I can.”  
“Alright,” Annie sighs as a blast of wind slams the bedroom window open again, “Jo? I’m going to let go of your hand now.”

 

Johanna gasps, shakes her head against Annie’s neck, and Annie almost reconsiders–almost decides to stay, but she can’t. Not when this storm doesn’t show any sign of calming down anytime soon.  
With infinite precaution, Annie unclasps one of Johanna’s hands from around her wrist and settles it in Noah’s grasp instead, making herself ignore his wince of pain when Johanna grips his fingers with all her strength, long scarred hands against smooth sun-tanned skin.

 

“It’s going to be okay,” Noah says as soon as Annie gets to her feet, Johanna humming to herself–it sounds like one of those melodies Finnick used to bring back from Mentors’ headquarters, and the thought makes Annie’s heart break in her chest. “It’s going to be okay, Mom’s taking care of everything.”

 

Johanna whines again when the wind picks up, and Annie hurries out of the room, refusing to listen while her baby boy attempts to talk her partner through a breathing exercise.  
She makes sure to stay away from the sodden portion of floorboard in the bedroom, and runs barefoot to the ground floor, crosses the kitchen as fast as she can, throws the door open—and stops in her tracks, breath catching.  
From there the storm looks even worse, the entire island trembling with it, and she has to close her eyes against the memories threatening to engulf her, has to remind herself what she’s doing and why before she—

It’s the image of Johanna that brings her back, red and small and scared against the pale blue tiles of their bathroom.  
Annie breathes in deep, brings her hands up to her ears, takes the time to spot Haymitch’s house in the darkness and, screwing her eyes shut, she throws herself out in the rain.

 

The sand-filled grass slips under her feet as the wind and rain cut into her like knives, the fabric of her nightshirt slapping against her sides and dragging her back, dragging her down, taking her out the same way it took the others—she can hear the canon go off like an erratic heartbeat –brooom, brooom, brooom—and it should stop now, it should stop, the others are all gone, but it doesn’t and there’s nothing there, nothing she can do but wait and hope and swim, swim, swim, always in vain—

Blinds slap against a wall with a wooden clang, and Annie discovers her hands left her ears to press against her mouth and stifle the scream she can feel catching at the back of her throat. Haymitch’s house is only a couple of steps away from her—just one more step Annie, one more, last one now—Annie all but crashes on the porch, drowning all over again, throat burning when the water comes back out.

 _They had to bring you back, you know_ —Finnick’s voice is soft and quiet in her ear, and Annie clings to it, tries to hear what he said next— _you were dead when they got you out. Didn’t know if they’d get you back, but they did. Tough luck._

 

“Tough luck,” Annie croaks to herself, huddling away from the rain and wind, pressing her hands against her ears again, trying to breathe as evenly as she can manage, “Tough luck, you get to live.”

 

Tough luck indeed.  
She waits for a long moment but her heart doesn’t show any sign of slowing down, and her legs still feel like cotton, and her arms are too tired, so tired they might as well just fall off and surely they will, they will, and she’ll sink and never come back up. Part of her feels glad, wants it, even—but then there’s mom and dad and Finnick and Noah and Jo, and Annie gasps and reaches the surface again, calls Haymitch name, louder and louder until she can hardly hear the wind anymore.

Light floods the porch like dawn on the shore, and Annie sighs in relief when Haymitch picks her off the ground, carries her to the upstairs bathroom. She lets him take her nightshirt off her, curls in on herself for as long as it takes for him to toss a warm towel her way.  
The fabric feels rough against her skin, but she enjoys the scratch of it on her cheek, rubs it against her arm until she feels like she’ll bleed.

 

“Better?”  
“Soon as I get dressed,” Annie croaks out.

 

The sink, she finds, makes for a decent point of focus, and she keeps her eyes on that as she tries to remember the breathing tricks she learned in Game school.  
Sometimes it’s a little difficult to remember she’s not in the arena anymore.

 

“Dammit Cresta, have you gone completely mad?” Haymitch asks after a while, and Annie snorts.  
“Tell me something I don’t know.”

 

Annie lets Haymitch pry the towel away from her, and realizes with a jolt of surprise that she actually did start bleeding. It doesn’t even really hurt, just burns a little.  
 _Huh. That’s new._

 

“I’m serious, Annie, why on earth would you get out with that kind of storm out side? I though you tried to _avoid_ episodes!”  
“And I’d have less trouble doing that if I didn’t need to protect Johanna,” Annie shoots back. “It’s the third time she’s freaked out this week—”  
“I’m an airbender,” Haymitch cuts off, face closing as he steps away from Annie as fast as he can. “Can’t do anything about the storm.”

 

Any other time, Annie would let it rest.  
She may not have spent much time with Victors outside of Four before the war, but she still knows you don’t pry into another Victor’s problems. First because it’s none of your business, second because it may well end up being too much to handle.

But as any Victor could tell you, privacy is a luxury. Part of Annie thought that would change after the war—and it did. Just not the way she was hoping for. It’s not a question of microphones in the houses anymore, Beetee made sure of that, but when you live with a bunch of people as messed up as you are, you’re only free to leave your crazy unattended so long as it doesn’t hurt your neighbors.

 

“You can do something about Finnick’s nightmares though.”

 

Haymitch physically flinches at the words, hands clenching, going to his belt—Annie can’t quite tell if he’s reaching for his bending fans or for a bottle.  
Still, there’s no way to do this and spare his feelings. There’s no way to make the storm stop that doesn’t involve a couple of people hurting. But, Annie reminds herself, this is the lesser pain. Someone has to rip the plaster eventually.

 

“Can’t unscrew his head,” Haymitch says at last, evidently determined to make this as difficult as possible.

 

Annie has seen him do it before—if you’re rude enough, terse enough, mute enough, eventually people stop asking. Unfortunately for him, Annie learned long ago that if you stop asking long enough, most people with a heavy mind start talking.  
Haymitch has the heaviest mind Annie’s ever met, and the strongest jaw as well, but even with Johanna waiting, Annie knows she’s more than patient enough to wait Haymitch out.

 

**{ooo}**

 

“Should have known he’d tell you all about it,” Haymitch mutters twenty minutes later while Annie is in the middle of making eggs.

 

She’ll go crazy if she doesn’t take her mind off Johanna, crouching on the bathroom floor with Noah’s fingers clenched in hers.  
Crazier, that is.

 

“Not everything. Just that he kissed you. I figured out the rest because I know him.”

 

Haymitch grunts.  
Annie focuses on the eggs again.

 

“I don’t know how to do this,” Haymitch sighs, a long moment later.

 

He sounds like Annie’s pulling his teeth out, and that’s pretty much how it feels, too.

 

“Neither did Finnick,” Annie replies, careful to keep her voice neutral, here gaze on the pan, the fizzling eggs. “Neither did I.”  
“Didn’t look like it took you long to learn,” Haymitch mutters, but it’s easy to hear he’s being stubborn more than anything else.  
“Don’t play dumb, Haymitch. Even Katniss learned better.”  
“Fine,” Haymitch sighs, “Fine.”

 

Annie hears him go through one of the breathing exercises he used when he stopped drinking—probably still uses them, too, in more private spaces—before he sighs again.

 

“I just don’t think it’s worth the trouble. For him.”

 

And here it is.  
Annie knew the conversation would come to this—that’s precisely why she avoided it for almost two weeks. Because, after all, Finnick has been robbed of enough statements already, and she’s still not sure her intervention won’t be more of the same. Still, there’s Johanna to think of and, right now, she’s the one who needs a respite the most.

Annie considers her options—imagines herself saying ‘he thinks the same about you’—and decides to take a chance.

“It’s Finnick you need to tell that.”  
“So he can agree?”  
“So he can know what you think and Johanna can get a good night’s sleep,” Annie replies.

She didn’t say anything about what Finnick thinks, but she’s not surprised to see Haymitch managed to read an answer in her avoidance. Hopefully, he didn’t come to the wrong conclusion.  
Hopefully, he and Finnick will sort it out—hopefully. Miscommunication is always a risk when you trust people to discuss intimate feeling.

Even more so where Victors are concerned.

“You know,” Haymitch sighs after another long silence, “Maybe it’s a good thing they only ever saw the crazy. They would have loved your strategies.”

This has to be the strangest compliment Annie ever received, and probably one of the very few references to the Games she’ll ever smile at—but she does smile.

“So, are you going to talk to him or not?”  
“Soon as possible,” Haymitch sighs.

Annie wishes the wariness in his voice were only there for effect.

“Thank you.”

She makes sure to serve the eggs before she steps out of the kitchen, Haymitch’s old shirt shivering in the wind as she braces herself for the trip back to her house.

“You too,” Haymitch mutters behind her.

Annie does the polite thing and pretends she didn’t hear him, but the return trip feels easier.

 

**{ooo}**

 

Noah hears his mother step into the house long before she pushes the bathroom door, dressed in a new nightshirt with her damp hair tied back on her neck.  
She’s at aunt Jo’s side in an instant, an arm wrapped tight around her shoulders while the other moves to push Johanna’s hair out of the way. Noah looks away while his mother kisses Johanna’s forehead.

There are parts of their lives he doesn’t feel like he should watch.  
He focuses on the ground instead, tries to catch the sound of rain outside—comforting to him when it mostly stresses his mom and aunt out—but there’s only silence, and it makes Noah smile even though the ants that rush through his arm when Johanna lets go of him.

He kisses her cheek, quick and soft because she doesn’t like anything else when she’s been panicking, and leaves the bathroom to bend the water out of Mom and Jo’s bed and floor. After that, all he has to do is wait until Johanna is safely back in bed, and the whole thing is over.

_And I didn’t even panic this time._

He part of him feels sad about that, but he doesn’t know why, and decides to ignore it. Aunt Jo is feeling better now. That’s good. That’s what matters.  
Mom guides Jo back to the bed—Noah turns around for that part. Aunt Jo doesn’t mind being naked but she doesn’t like it when Noah sees her after a freak out. He’s not quite sure why, but he figures he doesn’t need to.

 

“Thanks for you help,” Mom says when she’s done.

 

Noah turns around, and smiles when he spots his father’s house through the window. All the lights are on, and he can even see a silhouette pacing in the kitchen.

 

“Mom,” he asks, “Do you ever think Daddy and Haymitch would be cute together?”

 

Aunt Jo snorts.

 

“That’s really only their business,” Mom says.

 

She still smiles, though.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments, critiques and reviews are always appreciated <3


End file.
